(Download) "Trade and Development at the WTO Conference in Hong Kong: An Assessment from a Southern Ngo (Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute)" by Global Governance * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Trade and Development at the WTO Conference in Hong Kong: An Assessment from a Southern Ngo (Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute)
- Author : Global Governance
- Release Date : January 01, 2006
- Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 280 KB
Description
The Sixth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Hong Kong on 13-18 December 2005. The talks were a third installment of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001 and continued at Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. This commentary offers a Southern civil society advocate's perspective on the Hong Kong proceedings. I write as the Uganda-based coordinator of the Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI), although the views that follow are personal. In a word, the Hong Kong Ministerial was a great disappointment from the perspective of trade and development concerns. The priorities of developing countries were brushed aside while the negotiations concentrated on the interests of the developed countries. Hong Kong clearly indicated that the Doha Round is not actually, as proclaimed, a "Development Round." Rather, it is primarily a "Market Access Round" for developed countries to gain entry to the industrial and services sectors of developing countries. Advocates of developing country interests need to rethink their strategies vis-a-vis the WTO negotiations in recognition of this fact.